Office of Mercy (9781101606100) Read Online Free PDF Page B

shoulder like they sometimes did in the Pretends. She would get to hike along the beach; sand intrigued her, how it was so soft and loose but sturdy too, when piled up; and waves, her heart fluttered at the thought of ocean waves, those little mountains rising up and disappearing indefatigably, with a calm vigor that put the monstrous backup generator on level nine to shame.
    And Jeffrey would be there; Jeffrey would be leading the team. He was the only one in the settlement who talked openly about what the wilderness was like, and Natasha could never get enough of his stories. He had even been to the ocean once, on a sensor repair mission some time before the Epsilon birth, and he had told her (this was years ago, but Natasha remembered it well) that the waves made a sound like pulsing static on a dead sensor feed. He also said—not to be repeated to anyone from the Office of Recreation Engineering—that the Pretends were no substitution for the real sound and sight and full-flesh experience of the Outside.
    For the chance to leave the settlement once, only once, and to live that dream with Jeffrey, Natasha was ready to trade two decades of cleanup duty in the Dining Hall. One mission, she was sure, would provide enough wonderment to replace the stuff of her nightmares for years.
    Because there was another draw too; another facet of Natasha’s desire to see the Outside that she revealed to no one, often including her own conscious self. Natasha believed—it made no logical sense but still she had believed ever since she was a small child in her upper bunk in the old Epsilon dormitory—that some burning curiosity within her might find relief if she could only get to the Outside. She could not explain
why
the Outside should have this effect or
what
exactly was so unsatisfactory about life lived entirely within the settlement. All Natasha could name was a vague feeling that despite the wisdom of the Alphas there yet remained some realm of being that they chose not to access, some ancient truth (
There is no truth but the truth that the human mind bestows,
the Alphas would say); no, no, but still some inchoate, natural understanding that only the wind could whisper in the listening ear, that only the leaves could describe in their rustling or the ocean waves convey in their white crash and backward swirl.
    It was a ridiculous idea. People in ancient times had occasionally thought this way, had put their faith and hope in the natural world, and they had not arrived at any satisfactory method for living, and certainly nothing that rivaled the Ethical Code. Plus, what was of a more practical concern, if anyone knew that Natasha indulged such outrageous fantasies, they would never allow her to work in the Office of Mercy. Natasha, therefore, took care not to reveal the full depth of her unease—except occasionally to Jeffrey. She had extra reason to be glad about her caution now, if she wanted the Alphas to approve her for the mission. Especially (as Natasha thought, with a tinge of regret) given that there was enough in her permanent file working against her already.
    Natasha felt confident, proud even, of the work she had done in the last six years in the Office of Mercy. Two awards had come her way, one group award for best four-person team, and one solo award for her work in mapping the migratory patterns of large game animals using data from the satellite sensors. But there were other things, incidents from Natasha’s childhood that signaled a dangerous tendency for unethical thinking. From the ages of six through eleven—before she was old enough to hide it—Natasha had exhibited an overwhelming, even obsessive interest in the Outside; so much so that some of her fellow Epsilons still teased her about it when they got together in the Dining Hall to reminisce about old times.
    It was normal, of course, for children to be curious about the Tribes, but Natasha had openly expressed empathetic